NEW DELHI: India’s largest coal producer Coal India (CIL) has not increased its production to the extent that was required, said power minister RK Singh on Tuesday. The minister, while speaking to the press, said CIL needs to ramp up coal production as the demand has gone up significantly. “Power demands in the country has risen as a total of 2.86 crore households were electrified; this is one of the reasons for the power shortage in the country,” said Singh.
On the coal blending, the minister said that electricity generation companies (gencos) have started the process of importing coal for blending purposes. “Most of the states have started (the process), in fact every state has started,” said the minister.
India is facing an unprecedented power crisis due to coal shortage in the country, therefore, in an attempt to tackle the crisis the ministry asked gencos to import coal for blending. Meanwhile, a recent study by Moody’s Investors Service noted large coal-importing nations, including India, will look to ramp up output of domestic coal to strengthen energy security and lessen dependence on the import of fossil fuels.
“Chinese coal production surged 15% in March 2022. State-owned CIL targets to increase production by nearly 12% for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2023,” reads the report. The ministry also notified the electricity rules 2022. The new regulation will allow consumers to be eligible for open access to green energy if they have a contract demand or a sanctioned load of at least 100 kW.
The step was welcomed by the Cellular Operator Association of India (COAI) as the new regulation will allow telecom service providers (TSPs) to install an independent electricity facility. “Since each tower has an independent electricity connection and consumes about 3 to 5KW, which is much less than 1MW, our member TSPs are unable to make use of renewable sources effectively due to this regulatory bottleneck…”
Govt to monetise Rs 75K cr in coal sector this fiscal
The government is planning to monetise assets worth Rs 75,220 crore in the coal mining sector in the current financial year. The monetisation of coal blocks is likely to fetch the government revenue of Rs 52,200 crore, followed by Rs 20,320 crore from projects on mine developer and operator (MDO) model, Rs 2,000 crore from discontinued mines and Rs 700 crore from washeries. The asset monetisation target of NITI Aayog for the coal ministry for FY23 is Rs 6,060 crore, the ministry said. Against the NITI Aayog’s target of `3,394 crore for 2021-22, the total monetisation of the coal ministry was Rs 40,090 crore.